The sale of fake products online is completely out of control, and computing is not immune to it. From graphics cards with altered BIOS to flash drives that promise whole terabytes, there is always someone trying to sell pure electronic junk and run off with the money before the first complaints. The latest development comes through Review Geek, which spotted several "16 terabyte" SSDs for less than $100…
Falsifying computer components is a much older practice than we imagine. I still vividly remember the "Pentium" processors with sanded surfaces and repainted to alter their specifications, but modern examples abound. During the last "Great GPU Apocalypse", offers of counterfeit graphics cards with modified BIOS multiplied online. And amid all that chaos, there will always be someone offering flash drives and external drives with completely bogus capacities.
One of the most recent cases is that of solid-state drives with "16 TB" of storage. Everyone wants more space at a good price, but with less than $100 on the price tag, suspicions are inevitable: if a standard 16-terabyte hard drive averages 300 euros, there is no doubt that something smells fishy. The folks at Review Geek decided to buy one of these monsters and explore its insides.
Inside a '16 Terabyte' SSD
Thanks to the adventure of Josh Hendrickson of Review Geek, it is possible to confirm that the great "deal" of 16 terabytes plaguing Amazon and other e-commerce sites is nothing more than a microSD card reader with a USB-C port and a preinstalled 64 GB card. The ChipGenius app didn't fully detect the controller model, but it did reveal the use of USB 2.0, which makes no sense at this point.
The real problem is that these "SSDs" keep showing up on major platforms, and with wonderful reviews… all of them fake, or belonging to other products. The process is known as "review merging": scammers update their listings slowly shifting from one product to another, but the positive reviews and original stars don't go anywhere. Amazon is supposed to ban review merging and suspend all involved accounts, as well as remove the products… but it's not hard to find other similar listings.
In summary: don't buy this. And if a friend or family member is thinking of doing it, explain the situation. Legitimate manufacturers will surely offer that capacity at reasonable prices in the future, but we are still very far away.
Source: Review Geek
